Outflows of earnings

BEA's estimates of gross commuters' flows reflect the annual earnings of in-commuters and out-commuters for a given county. The gross commuters' earnings flows are internally consistent with BEA's Regional Economic Accounts and may be used in conjunction with other BEA regional economic data for a variety of purposes, such as to assess the impact of local commuting on county income growth.

BEA's estimates of gross commuters' earnings inflows and outflows are derived from the residence adjustment estimates, which are the estimates of the net inflows of the earnings of inter-area commuters. In the personal income accounts, the residence adjustment estimates are added to place-of-work earnings estimates to yield place-of-residence earnings estimates. This conversion process is an important part of the local area economic accounts because personal income is a place-of-residence measure, whereas the data used to estimate over 60 percent of personal income is reported on a place-of-work basis.

Because in- and out-commuters' earnings are not directly observable from year to year but must be indirectly inferred through journey-to-work (JTW) data available from the decennial census, the residence adjustment estimation procedures use several data sources to produce intercensal estimates of gross commuters' earnings on an annual basis.

Related Data Tables

For estimates relating to Outflows of earnings please see the following tables